Attendance in a national screening program for diabetic retinopathy:a population-based study of 205,970 patients

AIMS: A nationwide diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening program has been established in Denmark since 2013. We aimed to perform an evaluation of adherence to DR screenings and to examine whether non-adherence was correlated to DR progression. METHODS: The population consisted of a register-based cohort, who participated in the screening program from 2013 to 2018. We analyzed age, gender, marital status, DR level (International Clinical DR severity scale, none, mild-, moderate-, severe non-proliferative DR (NPDR) and proliferative DR (PDR)), comorbidities and socioeconomic factors. The attendance pattern of patients was grouped as either timely (no delays > 33%), delayed (delays > 33%) or one-time attendance (unexplained). RESULTS: We included 205,970 patients with 591,136 screenings. Rates of timely, delayed and one-time attendance were 53.0%, 35.5% and 11.5%, respectively. DR level at baseline was associated with delays (mild-, moderate-, severe NPDR and PDR) and one-time attendance (moderate-, severe NPDR and PDR) with relative risk ratios (RRR) of 1.68, 2.27, 3.14, 2.44 and 1.18, 2.07, 1.26, respectively (P < 0.05). Delays at previous screenings were associated with progression to severe NPDR or PDR (hazard ratio (HR) 2.27, 6.25 and 12.84 for 1, 2 and 3+ delays, respectively). Any given delay doubled the risk of progression (HR 2.28). CONCLUSIONS: In a national cohort of 205,970 patients, almost half of the patients attended DR screening later than scheduled or dropped out after first screening episode. This was, in particular, true for patients with any levels of DR at baseline. DR progression in patients with delayed attendance, increased with the number of missed appointments

A multi-biometric iris recognition system based on a deep learning approach

YesMultimodal biometric systems have been widely applied in many real-world applications due to its ability to deal with a number of significant limitations of unimodal biometric systems, including sensitivity to noise, population coverage, intra-class variability, non-universality, and vulnerability to spoofing. In this paper, an efficient and real-time multimodal biometric system is proposed based on building deep learning representations for images of both the right and left irises of a person, and fusing the results obtained using a ranking-level fusion method. The trained deep learning system proposed is called IrisConvNet whose architecture is based on a combination of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Softmax classifier to extract discriminative features from the input image without any domain knowledge where the input image represents the localized iris region and then classify it into one of N classes. In this work, a discriminative CNN training scheme based on a combination of back-propagation algorithm and mini-batch AdaGrad optimization method is proposed for weights updating and learning rate adaptation, respectively. In addition, other training strategies (e.g., dropout method, data augmentation) are also proposed in order to evaluate different CNN architectures. The performance of the proposed system is tested on three public datasets collected under different conditions: SDUMLA-HMT, CASIA-Iris- V3 Interval and IITD iris databases. The results obtained from the proposed system outperform other state-of-the-art of approaches (e.g., Wavelet transform, Scattering transform, Local Binary Pattern and PCA) by achieving a Rank-1 identification rate of 100% on all the employed databases and a recognition time less than one second per person

The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) - 2018 Summary Report

The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is a TeV-scale high-luminosity linear $e^+e^-$ collider under development at CERN. Following the CLIC conceptual design published in 2012, this report provides an overview of the CLIC project, its current status, and future developments. It presents the CLIC physics potential and reports on design, technology, and implementation aspects of the accelerator and the detector. CLIC is foreseen to be built and operated in stages, at centre-of-mass energies of 380 GeV, 1.5 TeV and 3 TeV, respectively. CLIC uses a two-beam acceleration scheme, in which 12 GHz accelerating structures are powered via a high-current drive beam. For the first stage, an alternative with X-band klystron powering is also considered. CLIC accelerator optimisation, technical developments and system tests have resulted in an increased energy efficiency (power around 170 MW) for the 380 GeV stage, together with a reduced cost estimate at the level of 6 billion CHF. The detector concept has been refined using improved software tools. Significant progress has been made on detector technology developments for the tracking and calorimetry systems. A wide range of CLIC physics studies has been conducted, both through full detector simulations and parametric studies, together providing a broad overview of the CLIC physics potential. Each of the three energy stages adds cornerstones of the full CLIC physics programme, such as Higgs width and couplings, top-quark properties, Higgs self-coupling, direct searches, and many precision electroweak measurements. The interpretation of the combined results gives crucial and accurate insight into new physics, largely complementary to LHC and HL-LHC. The construction of the first CLIC energy stage could start by 2026. First beams would be available by 2035, marking the beginning of a broad CLIC physics programme spanning 25-30 years

طبقات صخور الطفلة السوداء لعصر الأيوسين في تكوين" رس" بشمال سلطنة عمان - احتمال كونها صخور طفلة زيتية

A suite of samples from some black shale beds of lower Eocene Rus Formation from north of Oman have been investigated through detailed geochemical analyses. The obtained results indicate that these shale beds contain a significant amount of either soluble or insoluble organic matter. The total extractable dissolved organic matter content ranges from 3.5% to 5.8%, and Fischer Assay yields up to 20 U.S. gal/ton of oil. The average value of the total organic carbon content for these rocks is about 17.12% and that of kerogen content equals 27.21 %. The elemental analysis, vitrinite reflectances, IR-spectra, and TGA and DTG curves of kerogen isolates indicate that studied shales contain Types I and II kerogen which attained only an immature thermal maturation stage. The study reveals that Rus Formation black shale beds appear to have a good potential for shale oil production in north of Sultanate of Oman.تمت دراسة مجموعة من عينات صخور الطفلة السوداء المأخوذة من تكوين "رس" في شمال سلطنة عمان . وقد أوضحت نتائج الدراسة أن هذه الصخور تحتوي على نسبة عالية من المواد العضوية حيث تصل نسبة المواد البيتومينية بها إلى 5.8% ونسبة الكربون العضوي إلى 17.12% بينما تبلغ نسبة ما تحتويه من كيروجين حوالي 27.21 % ، كما أن هذه الصخور تعطي عند تحليلها بطريقة فيشر حوالي 20 جالون أمريكي من زيت البترول لكل طن . وأثبتت الدراسة أن صخور الطفلة تحتوي على كيروجين غني بالهيدروجين ويتبع النوع الأول والثاني غير الناضج . وخلصت الدراسة إلى أن طبقات الطفلة السوداء بالمنطقة تعتبر صخور طفلة زيتية غنية بالمواد العضوية ولها جهد عال لإنتاج المواد الهيدروكربونية

Solvation structures of sodium halides in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)–methanol (MeOH) mixtures

<p>A constrained molecular dynamics technique has been used to study the structures and dynamics of the solvation shells of three sodium halides, namely sodium chloride (Na⁺–Cl⁻), sodium bromide (Na⁺–Br⁻) and sodium iodide (Na⁺–I⁻) in DMSO–MeOH mixtures. In the case of Na⁺–Cl⁻ and Na⁺–Br⁻, Na⁺ is preferentially solvated by DMSO and Cl⁻ and Br⁻ are preferentially solvated by methanol in the contact ion pair (CIP) state. In the solvent-assisted ion pair (SAIP) configuration, Na⁺ ions of Na⁺–Cl⁻ and Na⁺–Br⁻ are preferentially solvated by methanol and Cl⁻ and Br⁻ also show preferential solvation by methanol over DMSO. In the case of Na⁺–I⁻, the only preferential solvation is in the SAIP state for I⁻ ion by methanol. These observations are supported by the calculated excess coordination numbers and spatial density maps. The heights of the transition states barriers for CIPs and SAIPs/solvent-shared ion pairs (SSHIPs) are significantly affected when the mole fraction of methanol (x_MeOH) changes from 0.0 to 0.25 because of a significant increase in the methanol density around halides. From the analysis of angular distribution functions of DMSO and methanol around the cations and anions, it is seen that DMSO and methanol molecules are present in parallel dipolar orientations (with respect to cation–solvent vector) in the first coordination shell of these three ion pairs at the CIP and SAIP states. Methanol molecules are nearly in an antiparallel (with respect to ion–solvent vector) orientation around the three halide ions.</p